The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis Chapter 298: A New Title, A New Role

The kiln wall still held the ghost of day’s fire.

I leaned my shoulder into the stone wall, listening to the river whisper against stone, and let the dark decide what it wanted to give . If Sun Longzi ant to co, he would co. If he ant to posture, he would already be late.

He wasn’t late.

Bootsteps angled down the alley, heavy enough to be a soldier’s but not careless enough to be an amateur.

Longzi knew how to walk where n might be listening. He stepped into the faint spill of torchlight from the gate, scarf low, hair tied plain, traveling cloth still creased from folding. Not the dressed general, not the commander’s son—just a man who wanted to be taken seriously.

Another shadow followed him.

I let my brows climb. "You brought soone."

"A veteran," Longzi replied evenly. His hand flicked once and the shape detached from him, broad-shouldered, scarred under one eye, the kind of man who had learned more from winter than from teachers.

The soldier bowed shallowly, waiting.

I looked him over the way a butcher looks at a slab of at—testing weight, age, quality. "Fifty paces back. Chaperone distance. Eyes down, ears closed. If you breathe too loud, you won’t breathe again."

The man inclined his head and lted into shadow, as if darkness had been waiting for him.

My mouth twitched. "You brought a chaperone," I said. "How proper. That way no one mistakes this for a tryst."

Longzi didn’t rise to the bait. He simply stopped three strides from and let his arms fall loose at his sides. His gaze was steady, not sharp. Not yet.

For a while, neither of us spoke. I let the silence stretch to see if he would waste words, but he didn’t. He had more discipline than his fiancée, at least.

"You wanted a eting," he said at last. "I ca. What is it you expect from ?"

I almost laughed. "That’s my question. You ca because you wanted to be here, not because I begged for your ti."

His jaw tightened. "If my brother, the Sun family’s discarded bastard, can stand in your palace wearing the heir like a sleeve ornant, then there is room for as well. I am not less than he is. Not in blood. Not in skill. Not in loyalty to Daiyu."

There it was. Rivalry, sharp as a spear.

"You think this is about proving yourself against Yizhen?" I asked, tilting my head. "That isn’t a ga I have ti to host."

His eyes burned, though his voice stayed level. "Then call it what it is. I am a general who commands n. I’ve fought for borders you only read about in reports. Yet I watch a man who spent half his life drunk on pleasure stand closer to the Emperor and the Heir than I ever have. If he is allowed, then so am I."

It wasn’t jealousy he wanted to see. It was indignation. The insult of wasted blood.

I pushed off the wall and stepped toward him, closing the space until the alley felt more like a blade sheath than a eting place. "Careful, Longzi. If all you have to offer is your pride, I’ll cut it to pieces before I let you drop it in my halls."

His chin lifted. "You asked what price I would pay to hold a gate. This is the price. My command, my banners, my n. I’ll give them up. I’ll walk into the palace as nothing more than another sword at your disposal. If that looks like madness to others, let them call mad. But I won’t stand outside while lesser n take positions I could hold better."

The words were steady, but the sacrifice behind them was staggering. To give up an army of his own — no one in Daiyu would think it anything but insanity.

I studied him, weighing what he wasn’t saying against what he had laid bare. He wanted to be in the palace so badly, but I didn’t know the reason why.

And that bothered .

"Why should I waste a general on kitchen patrols and incense argunts?" I asked.

"Because you waste more by leaving outside," he answered.

I let the corner of my mouth tilt — not approval, not yet. "You want a place in the palace? Then I’ll give you one. But it might not be where you want."

"Then where?" he pressed.

"Mingyu," I said. "My husband is Emperor, but he is also a man who prefers parchnt to blades. He has Yaozu watching , but who watches him? No one. If I were Baiguang, I wouldn’t strike at again. I would strike at the easier target."

Longzi stilled. He knew I was right.

"I want you as Captain of the Emperor’s personal guard," I continued. "That will be your place. You will eat and breathe for his safety. Every route he walks, you walk first. Every chamber he enters, you asure before he crosses the threshold. If he coughs in the night, you’ll know before the physician does."

"That’s not a post given to a general," he muttered, though there was no true resistance in his tone.

"No," I agreed. "It’s a post given to soone I expect to bleed quietly if it keeps him alive."

His hand flexed at his side, calluses creasing under leather. "And if I refuse?"

"Then you return to your army and rot at the edges of the map until soone younger takes your banners." I let my voice cut sharper. "But if you accept, you step into a palace where no one dares question why you’re there. Your fiancée can shriek until her throat breaks — the empire will still see you as the Emperor’s shield. Whether or not that is an equal title to The Commander of the Red Demons... that is up to you."

The soldier fifty paces back shifted, his weight scraping frost. Even he knew what kind of bargain this was.

Longzi’s gaze dropped for the first ti, not in defeat, but in calculation. "Captain of the Emperor’s guard," he repeated slowly. "That is what you offer ?"

"That is what I require of you," I corrected. "Personally, I don’t care about your family situation or the jealousy and grudge that you have for your brother. Take it or leave it, those are your two choices."

He looked back at then, and I saw the decision carve itself into his features. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t grateful. But he was caught.

"Then give the seal," he said.

"You’ll earn it," I replied. "Dawn. You’ll present yourself to Mingyu as if it were your own idea. He will frown. He will argue. And then he will yield, because I will already have told him what a wise suggestion it was."

His laugh was short, low, almost bitter. "You really do move the board before anyone else has picked up a piece."

"That’s why you’re here," I reminded him.

The alley seed narrower than when we’d started. The kiln wall had gone cold against my back, but his presence radiated its own heat — controlled, contained, dangerous.

"I’ll take the post," he said at last. "Let the court call insane. Let my mother rage. Let Lady Huai tear her hair. I’ll still stand where you’ve put ."

"Good," I said, stepping past him toward the mouth of the alley. "Because if you fail, the next man I put in your place will be standing over your corpse."

He didn’t flinch at the promise.

That was why I chose him.